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On Sunday evening, Sharmeka Moffitt went to a local park in Winnsboro, Louisiana to “walk a mile and run a mile.” Sometime later, she was approached by three men in “white t-shirt hoodies” who doused her with flammable liquid and set her on fire. For good measure, they scrawled “KKK” and “nigger” on her car. Sharmeka was able to get to a spigot of water, put out the flames, and then call 911 for help. She is now in critical condition with burns to over 60% of her body at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport, LA.

As of late Monday evening, the local Louisiana authorities were still vacillating over whether or not to call this a hate crime. Part of their hesitancy stems from the fact that Sharmeka could not definitively identify the race of her attackers.

The fact that the race of her attackers is being used as a gauge for this hate crime demonstrates the limitations of how we think about race and racism in this country. This Black woman was targeted and subjected to severe and life-threatening bodily injury for sport. Her perpetrators then thought they should punctuate their crime by scrawling hateful racially incendiary messages on her car. What isn’t hateful about that?

And what is with all the shock and bewilderment? Winnsboro, Louisiana is just about 60 miles from Jena, Louisiana, the site of the 2007 Jena 6 incident. I grew up in Ruston, Louisiana, about 75 miles from Winnsboro. As late as the late 1990s, the KKK marched in downtown Ruston, and my classmates bragged during class trips about having relatives who were high ranking officials in the terrorist organization. Racially incendiary acts are commonplace in this part of the world. (Every damn part of the U.S. world) Like critical race theorists tell us, racism is not an aberration. It is part of the everyday, commonplace fabric of our lives. Before folks start decrying this act as an individual aberration of 3 sick individuals, perhaps we would do well to remember that their acts are symptomatic of the continued persistence of racism in this country.

Racism is like an autoimmune disorder. It attacks the body politic from the inside out, warring against itself, but frequently on the surface, things seem normal and healthy. We are only attuned to the problem when a flare up happens. But to continue to act as though the flare up is the disease is to engage in the most unhealthy and self-defeating form of denial there is.

Then again, maybe it’s the hoodies. Selective historical amnesia being what it is, perhaps folks have come to believe that only Black men roam in public space under hooded covers threatening to do harm to other citizens. Our rush into a postracial fantasy makes us too soon forget that white men, particularly rural Southern white men, are experts in terrorizing and policing racial minorities’ access to public space.

Even if it turns out that Sharmeka’s attackers are not white men, we should ask ourselves why her attackers would choose such a powerfully interpretive historical narrative in which to play out their need to do harm to a Black girl’s body and personhood. Racism has a basic grammar, a set of rules, which we all learn to speak, having been immersed in it our entire lives. In a racist grammar, the subjects know that power is predicated on the ability to exercise violence (of various types) against a direct object, namely an innocent victim who bears the marks of the wrong skin color in the wrong time and place.

And for all the folks who think Black women don’t use public parks for exercise because we want to maintain our hair styles, let this be an object lesson. Maybe Black women with modest resources who can’t afford to go to the gym don’t use public parks because those spaces are unsafe.

As of this point, the coverage of Moffitt’s attack has been minimal. I knew about it only because folks back home were posting info from local news sources. I guess it is left up to social media to convince the world yet again that violence against Black women matters. And I hope Black folks remember, too, that Sharmeka’s life deserves the same energy that we gave to the Jena 6 and to Trayvon Martin.

Sharmeka, you are not invisible to us. We stand with you in your fight.

38 Responses to “When the Hoodies Are White: Justice4SharmekaMoffitt”

America’s hooded legacy is rife with white racism and will remain that way. Racism is taught. It does not organically grow spontaneously. Someone thought out this crime and fabricated a plan then went out to commit it. As a rule no one carries flammable fluids along to a park nor do they carry writing instruments used to deface a vehicle unless they intend to caommit murder and mayhem. Both are long time hallmarks of the KKK.

As always, you hit the nail on the head. Thank you for bearing witness and visibilizing her experiences. There is no doubt that Sharmeka (and Marissa Alexander, New Jersey 7, etc, etc) deserves the same energy and dedication as the Jena 6, Trayvon Martin, etc.

I especially appreciate how you call out the ridiculous of waiting on this violent state (the perpetrator of the most MASSIVE hate crimes) to call this is a hate crime-as if this could be anything but that.

Sometimes I want to make the t-shirt “black women matter.” and wear it every single day.

Not so fast Becca – who is to say that it wasn’t the culture of white supremacy underpinning her reasons for harming herself? We need more time and information and apply thoughtful, critical analysis. Though these emerging details do make this case much more complicated, if a person is doing any harm at all, to themselves, to their communities, to their foes, then it means that they have serious needs which have not been met by this fucked up capitalist society we live in that does not care about anything but profit. There can still be important lessons learned here, and I honestly think that this new info does NOT make this piece any less pertinent.

Paul B, Anytime you give up responsibility for your actions you are giving someone else power. We have to take responsibility for our own problems, our own actions. We have to start meeting our own needs instead of waiting for someone to meet them. Obviously, it’s not gonna happen. Stop the blame game, it doesn’t work and it keeps us in a self imposed bondage. Billy can’t read because Billy’s parents didn’t make sure he knew how to read, not because the system failed him. We have to act like we’re free or we will forever be slaves.

My state! Your state? Barbarian terrorists just like Al Queda and the Taliban. This is why I detest any political party, religious institution, etc that spews rhetoric that pits one against the other, no matter what the differences are. My hope is for a speedy recovery for this lovely woman and the speedy arrest and incarceration for life for the individuals who did this.

This is a wonderful post, thanks so much for writing. It should be noted, however (not because we should trust the cops) that the “authorities” are saying the wounds were self-inflicted, and the story made-up… I hope that yall can keep following this story, because whatever the “truth” is, it will require rigorous, radical anti-oppression analysis to understand. Thank you.

So, the police are saying she may have done this to herself? Perhaps. But I grew up in North Louisiana and know that local authorities and persons of power can be corrupt or racist and cover up or manipulate incidents. Especially if one of the culprits just happen to be related to them. I am not making accusations, I am just saying that sometimes here in the South, things aren’t exactly the way the authorities say they are.

Not sure about the details of the case. But to be sure, the paragraph about racism being an autoimmune disorder is so true for this country in general. Racism is not necessarily race specific, continually perpetrated by one race on another. It is usually perpetrated by whoever feels in power or wants to maintain power at that moment. Its essentially a power struggle. But no matter what it is…it harms us all and makes us divide ourselves into man-made color-based factions.

The points in your post are well made. This was a truly horrific incident and it is upsetting to think that anyone could do this to another individual. Worse still that someone can arrive at a mental state where they can do it to themselves. And yet, what I find truly disturbing are some of the comments posted in reply. Especially those who having been alerted to the fact that these injuries were, most likely, self inflicted. Some of the responders still see this as a racist act. Those folks bother me because they can turn any act into one that has a racist bias. And those are the folks that fuel most of the terrorism in the world today.

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